


Anchor And Anchorage

by tielan



Series: the Drift is compatibility, not destiny [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Desire, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Ghost Drifting, Happy Ending, Loss, Post-Movie(s), Sexual Content, The Drift (Pacific Rim), relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:29:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Drift is compatibility, not happily-ever-after. Or the story of how Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket deal with their demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sail your sea, meet your storm

**Author's Note:**

> When I first started putting together 'The Naming Of Foxes', the file of scenes was rather longer than the number of scenes in the final story. I ended up cutting out a whole bunch of things in order to keep 'Foxes' tight and reasonable. This fic is comprised of about half those scenes and half a bunch of things that I wanted to write. Including sex. Lots and lots of sex. :D
> 
> In two parts. Second part is still being written.

Hong Kong feels as though nothing has changed, and yet everything is different.

The Jaeger bays stand empty, most of their crews returned home. Only a handful of personnel remain to greet them on their return.

 _Sensei_ is not one of them.

It hits Mako like a _kaiju_ fist over her heart as she stands at the helipad and realises she is waiting for him to stride out from the Shatterdome. He is _gone_. Not just for a day or a week or a month, but forever and always.

A warm hand closes over hers, and she looks up, startled, as Raleigh laces their fingers together.

“It’s hard to imagine the Jaeger program without him, isn’t it?”

It is more personal than that, and yet keeping it professional helps. “Yes.” Mako swallows the lump in her throat and tightens her fingers around his. “But we will.”

–oOo–

Their doors open at the same time, and Mako closes hers behind her, and steps across the empty corridor, and if her heartbeat is uneven, it’s only because this is no longer just the Drift.

Raleigh closes the door behind her and rests against it as she strips off her shirt and trousers. But when she lifts a brow at his smile, he just pulls off his sweater, takes her hand in his, and draws her in to bed.

Sharing a bed was not like this before – at least, it was not so for her.

Then, she felt the need for her co-pilot close – flesh-close, skin-close – warm and real and there in the face of all the new uncertainties they faced in the world they created together.

Now, her breath catches when she climbs into bed. Mako is abruptly conscious of the size and weight of Raleigh beside her, the scent and heat of him all around her. Desire is a pit in her belly, and the catch of his breath and the half-hardness against her thigh says it is the same for him, even without the intimacy of the Drift.

Yet tonight is about something more than mere desire. It is enough to climb beneath the blankets and settle against him. It is sufficient to breathe the same air, occupy the same space.

Tonight, to sleep close is all they need.

–oOo–

The morning is a different matter.

Light, smiling kisses take a deep and urgent turn. His hands slide under the edge of her shirt, sketching caresses up her sides. Mako drags the hem of his shirt up over his head, and strokes her fingers along his scars before bending to lick the marks on his shoulder, tracing the red, ridged lines with delicate care.

Raleigh makes a noise in his throat. “If you’re gonna do that, take off your top.”

In answer, Mako sits up and pulls off the t-shirt, arching a brow as she drops it off the bed. And Raleigh surveys her with blue fire in his eyes – then sits up and pulls her astride him so she’s wedged up against the swell of his erection.

“You walk away now or you don’t walk away,” he says roughly.

Mako fists her hand in his hair, tilting his mouth up to hers. “Never.”

He meets her demands, makes his own with his lips and his hands and his hips, until they break apart with a breathless gasp.

She traces his lower lip with her fingertips. “This isn’t just the Drift.” It is their conscious choice, not a subconscious need given outlet in sex.

“This is us,” he confirms and the terror and tenderness in his eyes unwinds something within her soul and wraps it about his. “You and me.”

It is, and yet it is more, too.

When Raleigh kisses his way down her throat, Mako arches with the taste of her own skin. When she slides her fingertip down the length of him, the ache in her cleft is like a knife.

When his fingers urge her into orgasm, his breath catches and his body jerks, and she laughs and sobs into his mouth until the sharpest of the pleasure has faded.

“Now,” she reaches for him, urging him over her, crooking her leg around his hip, “You.”

Raleigh tries to be careful at first, but Mako does not want him to hold back. Not this time nor any other. And when he pushes himself deep, she clutches him hard and bucks up beneath him, wanting more – everything, all of him.

He gives it without hesitation, and they move together in the sensuous rhythms of a new dance. Slowly at first, then faster, harder.

Mako doesn’t know the noises she makes, only that everything is hot and slick and hungry. His voice is tinder in her ear, his lips are brands on her skin, his body moves inside her and against her and around her – fire and oil in flesh and blood.

Raleigh comes, and Mako cries out as though she is the one spent, her body bright and blind with ecstatic intimacy.

They sprawl in heat and scent and breathlessness, and the certainty that this is where she belongs.

In the aftermath, both possessor and possessed, Mako wonders what took her so long to make up her mind.

* * *

They get to the mess hall in time for lunch, which Raleigh considers a major victory. If it was up to him and not his stomach, they’d still be in bed.

On the other hand, everyone’s staring at them – amused, smirking, gleeful expressions that do interesting things to Mako’s nape, and which only make Raleigh want to grab their trays of food and head straight back to his room. After all, if everyone knows, there’s not much point in hiding it, is there?

He can almost hear Mako in his head. _We are not hiding anything. We are behaving with propriety._

As he accepts the scoops of food from the grinning server staff, Raleigh thinks they should screw propriety. Mako’s exasperated sideways glance suggests she guessed – or sensed – his thought.

Herc looks from one to the other but says nothing about their appearance together, merely swiping his bread through the stew. “Hope you’re ready for work. Marshal Yun’s coming in tonight.”

Raleigh blinks. Beside him, Mako has stiffened, thinking of someone else in Pentecost’s office. “Already?”

“Yun doesn’t let the grass grow under.” Herc glances over at Mako, his expression gentle. “LOCCENT got a call from Dr. Sandino this morning – she wants to talk to you about the plans for restoring Crimson Typhoon.”

Raleigh catches her elbow before she can run off to teleconference. “Eat first, then the Jaeger plans.”

Somehow, Mako makes sulking look good and Raleigh wants nothing more than to lean in and kiss the pouting bow of her lips in front of Herc and all the mess hall. He doesn’t, though, because the gesture would embarrass her.

They’ll have to negotiate public displays of affection, but now isn’t the time and here isn’t the place.

Over lunch, the conversation is casual, light; who’s staying in Hong Kong, who’s going to come back. Things that have changed in the Shatterdome since they were last here.

Nobody mentions, comments, or references him and Mako.

Not verbally, anyway.

But by the time Mako has eaten enough to satisfy Raleigh that she’s not going to faint from lack of food, the entire mess hall feels like it has this huge thumbs-up happening on everyone’s face. Mako’s neck is probably burned permanently red, and if Raleigh grins any harder his ears are going to fall off his head.

But they don’t talk about it.

The mess hall empties with the change of shift and Mako heads up to the LOCCENT and her plans for Crimson Typhoon, flashing him a swift and brilliant smile before falling into conversational step with one of the J-techs.

Raleigh watches her until she’s gone.

He’s hers and it’s not a lapse in propriety that anyone with eyes knows it.

“I’d suggest you get a room, but you’ve got two,” Herc rubs his hand across his chin. “Still. If you want something bigger, there’s always Stacker’s old quarters.”

Raleigh nearly chokes at the thought of making love to Mako in her dad’s old bed.

Then he gets a look at Herc’s face. Dead serious and just slightly polite – not an expression that he’s often seen on the Australian man. He coughs to get his throat clear. “Someone once warned me never to trust anything an Aussie said with a straight face.”

Herc breaks into a slight grin. “Good call. Although I was serious. Kind of. If you want new digs, now’s the time to get them.”

“We’ll keep our rooms.” Mako might have accepted what’s between them, but it hasn’t escaped Raleigh’s notice that she unpacked in her old room rather than moving straight into his. “She’ll want somewhere to stay up and work late if she’s going to oversee the Restoration Project.”

Herc’s eyes tighten a little. “And you?”

“I’ll make myself useful any way you’ll have me.” Raleigh shrugs. “I’ve never done anything other than piloting a Jaeger, and construction.”

“Plenty of room for construction these days.”

“I don’t think I have a construction ticket for Hong Kong.” And going back into construction in the US – rebuilding now – would take him away from Mako for longer than he likes – weeks at a time, probably months. “You?”

“Oh, there’s work enough around the place. The RAAF back home wants me to come back and contract with them. There’s noises about using the PONS interface technology to fly planes and other things.” Herc nods absently at a group of Strike Troopers as they pass. “Chuck would have gone back in an instant. Sydney was always home for him.”

The ache of Yancy is still there – always will be there – but it’s easier now. Sort of. Right now, there’s a tightness pulling at his chest and Raleigh doesn’t know why. He pushes it aside, focuses on Herc. Bad enough to lose a brother, yes, but how much worse would it be to outlive your own son?

“What do _you_ want to do?”

“You headshrinking me, Becket?”

“Helping you look at options.” Because he likes and respects the older pilot, and because Mako is quietly worried about Herc.

“I want to stay in the Program.” Herc looks away. “You know the saying about old dogs and new tricks.”

“You’re far from old. And I hear the RAAF isn’t exactly a new trick for you.”

“Maybe.” If there’s a more non-committal answer, Raleigh’s never heard it. “Guess I’ll see what happens when Yun turns up.”

The way Herc turns the conversation is pretty definite; this isn’t something he’s going to talk about now. Raleigh figures that’s okay, he’s let the older man know that there are people who care about him, about what happens to him. Chuck wasn’t a very good son, but he was Herc’s son and co-pilot. Losing him would hurt.

His thoughts stray to his own dead – remembering the Drift as they danced at the Celebration Ball in DC and Yancy’s easy grin, wondering what Yancy would say to him today.

It hits him hard and sudden and shocking – the realisation that if Yancy were alive, Raleigh wouldn’t have known Mako as he does. Maybe they’d have met, but she’d have been nothing more than Stacker Pentecost’s daughter, a pretty face striding through the Shatterdome on her way somewhere else, perhaps Drifting with another Jaeger pilot, maybe an occasional lover.

Raleigh wouldn’t have known her this way – not so completely, so absolutely, not in the Drift.

He couldn’t have kept Yancy and loved Mako the way he does now.

One or the other, but not both. Never both.

–oOo–

That night, Mako comes to him, elated from the plans and news of the day, which she tells him as she pulls off his sweater and his shirt and slides her hands down his chest.

Raleigh shuts her up with a kiss, two kisses, a few, many, lots...

This morning was exploratory – an easy lesson in desire and want; in how sex is going to work between them – how their bodies fit together, the rhythms of lovemaking. They gave and were taken in return, and the best part for Raleigh was lying on Mako afterwards and listening to her heart skippety-hop under his cheek while her fingers traced lines of sweat across his shoulders.

Tonight Raleigh wants her in the simplest and most urgent way possible.

He’s not nice, but he is thorough, and Mako doesn’t protest his lead, doesn’t object to being on the receiving end of desire. And if she doesn’t take control from him, she doesn’t lie passive either – sketching her fingernails down his belly, rubbing herself wetly against his hipbone, nipping anything she can reach even when he has her pinned.

“Behave,” he growls into her ear, and shoves himself into her in one slippery thrust – heaven and home and belonging and _them_.

Mako arches underneath him. He bucks a little just to make her squirm and her fingers bite into his hips. “Oh! You are a _tease_ , Raleigh Becket!”

“Too late for takebacks.”

“I would not return you, even if you came with a receipt.”

Tenderness ignites in his belly, a golden glow as bright as their Jaeger’s heart. Then her lashes drop over an impish smile and she wriggles under him, slick and wicked.

His world turns white-hot in her arms, leaving him gasping. His revenge is to make love to her with a ferocity that both exults and frightens him. And Raleigh takes a deep satisfaction in the way Mako writhes, her fingers grabbing greedily at his hips as she comes twice, the second orgasm hard on the heels of the first, wringing them both dry.

* * *

Mako’s days are full of the Jaeger Restoration Project: meetings and conference calls and conversations with Engineering, Weapons, and the J-techs. Crimson Typhoon is on the way back from Oblivion Bay, a joint project by the Chinese Government and the UN.

The Mark V-E plans are on the backburner – or, more correctly, as Herc observes – the UN is baulking at the price. Mako is unsurprised – it was the cost that closed the Jaeger program down the first time.

Meanwhile, the plans for Crimson Typhoon are slowly coming together, updated with the most recent technology advances in the last five years of the war. And there are plenty of smaller Jaeger projects starting up – construction, mining, heavy industry, city clean up.

When Raleigh ventures an interest in that area, Mako leaves those matters to him.

Already, her engineering teams are finalising the construction plans with the factories that once created Jaegers, many of which are now constructing smaller human-powered robots for other tasks: mining and industrial work, shore cleaning, and bringing down the Wall. The Rebuilding Initiative is taking over the world – new life, new hope, new productivity in the face of the closing of the Breach.

Mako has no words for how good it is to have hope again – only a breathless pleasure in her chest when she looks at what can be done through the Jaeger technology and the PONS – what _sensei_ made possible.

Keeping busy almost squashes the ache of missing _sensei_ , but sometimes it rushes in on her, looking up at the empty Jaeger bays, turning to where she expects to see him and doesn’t find.

Grief is a private thing; one must show a good face and carry on. That is her way, as it was _sensei’s._ “ _The stiff upper lip of the Brits_ ,” Tamsin said the last time she saw Mako. “ _He might show you his grieving face, Mako, but he sure won’t show the world. Look after him?_ ”

It is better here in Hong Kong than it was on the tour, at least. Too many people could not seem to understand how much she grieved because she did not wear her heart on her sleeve.

Here, in Asia, they are more understanding.

And yet there are moments when Mako entirely forgets _sensei_ is gone.

One afternoon, her feet find their way to his office, and she stops on the threshold.

Gone is the elegant simplicity of his office – all things put away, ordered and organised, a handful of photos on one wall, and a single scroll of the Eight Virtues on the other. Instead, a mad chaos reigns across the desk – papers and notes, files and photos – a melange of bits and pieces, things.

Too late, Mako remembers it is not _sensei’s_ office any more.

“Miss Mori,” Marshal Yun looks up from his computer. “How may I help?”

The disappointment rushes in on her like a crashing wave, choking in her throat. She strives to keep it from her expression and searches for something to disguise her mistake while Marshal Yun waits. “I...I wished to ask about the people returning. Have there been many applications?”

“Far more than we can accommodate.” The Marshal gestures her to a seat and opens up something on his tablet. “I shall send you the list. If there are people that you or Mr. Becket would like to work with, then you must let me know – with discretion, of course.”

“Of course.” Mako hesitates before asking. “Desmond Appin and Dr. Helen Jiang – have they applied?”

“I have already approved them. You are close with Dr. Jiang?”

“Yes.” Helen has been something of a mother-figure through the years, more so than Tamsin, who took on the role of big sister. But it is not wholly for her own sake that she would like to see Helen in Hong Kong.

Mako is concerned for Herc, who has grown distant in the wake of the Breach’s closing. As gentlemanly as he ever has been with his blunt courtesy, but quiet in his grief and solitude. And a little lost, perhaps, without Chuck, without his Jaeger, without _sensei_.

The world has changed, become new before their eyes, but she has Raleigh, and Raleigh has her, and Herc has no-one.

Mako hopes the presence of friends will mitigate his loneliness.

There are other names on the list of applications – Tendo Choi is bringing his wife and son from Anchorage. Vanessa Gottlieb plans to come to Hong Kong when her child is born. Other Shatterdome personnel are familiar from the places _sensei_ commanded – Lima, LA, Anchorage, Tokyo.

Mako indicates the names to the Marshal, and he promises to give them due consideration.

She leaves him to his work, thanking him for his time. And if he suspects the grief that beats impotent fists against her ribcage, he does her the courtesy of not betraying her. That is not their way.

But outside the office that once was _sensei’s_ , she wonders if coming back to Hong Kong was such a wise idea.

–oOo–

If the Jaeger Restoration Project occupies her days, then Raleigh occupies her nights.

Mako has had sexual partners before, but she had a lover once – Vijay – during the war. She learned his lovemaking in little bits, thieving moments, schooling herself and him between their Shatterdome responsibilities.

Raleigh is a lesson she gets to learn in long, lazy tutelage – mornings spent memorising his lines with her fingertips, evenings spent writhing under a thorough oral examination.

“You are voracious,” Mako tells him as he makes his way down her body and turns her insides to liquid. Propped up on her elbows so she can watch and not just feel him, she quivers as his fingers slide up the inside of her thigh, smoothing close to the cleft where she aches for his mouth, his fingers, his cock – close but not quite touching.

His tongue snakes out to dip into her navel, a quick lick of sensation that makes her belly quiver, before his breath whispers across her skin. “Only for you, Mako.”

She crooks her knee over his shoulder when he eases down between her knees, opening herself up to him, giving herself the pleasure of the smooth, well-muscled line of his back against her leg. It also allows her to dig her heel into his spine as he bends and licks her, deep and deliberate, making her arch into his mouth, wanting more.

His chuckle reverberates beneath her calf.

* * *

The first time Mako flies out to oversee a manufacturing aspect of the Jaeger Restoration project, Raleigh fights the urge to ask her not to go – or, at least, to take him with her.

Instead, he kisses her before the elevator doors open. “Take care.”

Her smile is a tug on his heart, brilliant and warm. “You, too.”

He stays to watch the Sikorsky lift and wonders if this will get easier with time. Maybe in a year or two or five or fifty, he might not feel the sudden stab of terror that she’s leaving him and not coming back. Maybe.

Over the next four days, he buries himself in work. In the mornings, he studies with Tendo in the LOCCENT, learning the details of the PONS technology – all the things he never concerned himself with back when he was a pilot.

“You were too busy being a Becket Boy, Becket Boy,” Tendo says, slapping him on the shoulder when Raleigh mentions being staggered by just how much went into keeping the pilots in the neural bridge. “But you’re doing well in spite of that pretty face of yours.”

In the afternoons, he works with Herc and the Jaeger Assault Specialists reviewing the capabilities of the weapons systems on Crimson Typhoon and sorting through the various requests for Jaeger-experienced pilots.

“Hasn’t anyone explained that most Academy graduates have PONS experience?”

“Won’t do,” Herc says. “They want a Jaeger pilot. Too bad they’re not going to get one.”

There are only a handful of surviving Jaeger pilots, and most have retreated from public view, even in the wake of the closing of the Breach. Drifting with a co-pilot doesn’t leave much space for anyone else, and fighting the _kaiju_ takes its toll – in the Drift, in the fight, in the stress – in the missions they failed to carry out, the cities and counties and boroughs they failed to save. They all carry their scars – some on the outside, but most on the inside.

Raleigh has both.

With Mako gone, the bed feels big and empty, although it’s a single cot and barely fits him. He mentions it in one of their evening calls and she laughs. “The bed in my suite would fit four.”

“Just as long as it’s only fitting one tonight,” he says, trying to make a joke of it and feeling like he doesn’t quite manage humour.

“Only one,” Mako says, a smile of understanding peeping at the corners of her lovely, kissable mouth. “And her dreams.”

“I miss you.”

Her expression is luminous. “I know.”

Raleigh goes to bed restless but wakes with the lingering feeling that Mako crawled in beside him at some point last night, a warm and tender weight in his arms for an hour or two of shared sleep.

Herc eyes him with some suspicion when he saunters in to breakfast. “Someone had a good night.”

“Transference.”

“Ah.” The blue gaze grows distant and Raleigh looks down at his plate and suddenly regrets mentioning anything to do with the Drift at all.

He doesn’t know how to ask how Herc is managing – how to bring up Chuck. For starters, he doesn’t know the older man that well, and it wasn’t as though Chuck and he were even friendly. All Raleigh has is the memory of how it felt to lose Yancy, and he feels almost as though he can’t say anything about that, either – after all, he has Mako now.

It’s worse that Pentecost is gone, too, along with Chuck, because at least Stacker understood what it meant to lose a co-pilot.

When he looks up again, the older man has gone sober. “Don’t you worry about me, mate. You keep an eye out for Miss Mori. That girl’ll work herself into the ground if there’s nobody to watch her. Pentecost could pull her out, but nobody else.”

“And you?” Raleigh figures they’re close enough that he can ask, but Herc’s face closes up like a Conn-Pod door before drop. It’s not promising, but he persists, because someone has to. “Mako worries about you. She’s not going to stop.”

“Did people worrying about you stop you from grieving your brother?”

“No.”

“You can’t do anything for me.” Herc doesn’t mince words. “Nobody can. You look after Mako and leave well enough alone.”

Raleigh remembers all the sympathy and kindness after Yancy died – too much. He fled the Jaeger program as much to escape it as to flee the hole in his soul. He won’t put Herc through that, too.

But he won’t let the man think he’s alone, either.

“You know we’re here if you need us.”

“I appreciate it. But don’t think that gives you the right to pry.”

Chided, Raleigh doesn’t broach the topic again, although he sets himself a mental note to have a word with Dr. Jiang. The neuropsych knows Herc better than he does, and this is her area of expertise. Maybe she’ll speak with Herc – maybe Herc will let closer friends help him?

He has a feeling that Mako would have pushed – or, at least, known how better to deal with Herc’s pain – but Mako’s not here.

–oOo–

He’s problem-solving his way through a technical glitch in a Drift simulation when his breath catches.

“What is it?” Tendo asks, coming over with sudden concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Raleigh says, forcing his attention back to the read-outs and trying to breathe normally while every inch of his skin tingles. He feels like he just got electrocuted out of a dense fog and woke up in bright sunlight. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look—” Tendo breaks off as the LOCCENT doors slide open, and sighs. “I should’ve guessed.”

“I am sorry.”

Mako sounds nothing of the sort and the grin on Raleigh’s face as their eyes meet is the size of a Category 4.

“Well, Becket Boy, looks like you’ve earned yourself a reprieve. Or possibly these imaginary Rangers have earned it, because you’re a lousy L-tech, and if you really were controlling this Drift, they’d have headaches for hours afterwards.”

Raleigh gives some kind of an answer that he doesn’t remember because Mako’s smiling at him, and he’s too busy fighting every part of him that wants to do nothing more than cross the room and plaster himself to her for the rest of their lives. Since that’s pretty much all of him, he doesn’t have a lot of attention left.

His memories after that are a little blurry – he and Mako walk through the hallways of the Shatterdome, answer calls from people they know, and apologise to people they bump into, but none of it feels _real_. In fact, the next thing that’s clear – really clear – is that her mouth is under his and her hands are in his hair and he’s fucking Mako against the back of his closed door.

And she’s fucking him right back, making little _oh-oh-oh_ noises with every thrust, and digging her fingernails into his neck and shoulders leaving him with little red welts that none of his sweaters will hide.

Raleigh doesn’t care.

Mako’s home.

“I was going to go slower,” he says afterwards when he’s tumbled them both into the too-small bed and they lie in a tangle of undress - clothing, limbs, and laughter.

“Later.” Mako hiccups, smiling. Her fingers trace his brow, his nose, his mouth, his jaw, like she forgot what he looked like while she was gone. “I missed you, too.”

Raleigh grins and buries his nose in her shoulder, quivers with shared pleasure at their closeness. “Welcome home.”

* * *

Proportionally there are never as many women working in a Shatterdome as men, but the numbers are still significant. Mako spent her teenaged years among practical, solution-oriented women in every job from Jaeger pilot to weapons specialist.

Still, it feels...strange to have so many women from the Shatterdome gathered in one place. Unusual.

“Blame Helen,” Vanessa says when Mako mentions this in a quieter moment, while most people are gathering food over by the tables and Vanessa is breastfeeding her newborn daughter without qualm or shame. “I swear that woman knows everyone and their cousin who ever worked for the PPDC.”

Across the room, Helen is blowing a raspberry on Caleb Choi’s belly as he squeals in delight.

“Well, it is not so large a group.” Mako may not know everyone who ever worked for the PPDC but she does know a great many of them thanks to _sensei_. It has almost stopped hurting to think of him here in Hong Kong – just a lingering ache that fades after a minute or two.

“When compared to, oh, the population of China, no.”

Vanessa grins and reattaches Gail, who seems to have lost her mother’s nipple and is flailing about at the loss of her food source. Mako is both admiring and a little embarrassed at Vanessa’s casual attitude to breastfeeding her daughter in public, although she would never say so, and Vanessa is kind enough not to call her embarrassment into question.

“So, how are you going, by the way?” Dark eyes glance sharply at Mako. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since the PR tour. I hear you got back from Europe last week – how’s Restoration going?”

“The repair of Crimson Typhoon is coming along well.”

“And the Mark V-E?”

“It appears to be on hold.”

“Right. The cost.” Vanessa regards Mako with a steady, studying gaze. Mako tries to return it, but she does not have what Newt calls ‘the bullshitting gene’. She looks away, then returns to Vanessa when the other woman asks, “Have you heard anything much about the future of the Jaeger project?”

“Was that not confirmed when the United Nations agreed to maintain the PPDC?”

“Sort of. It was more established that the Jaeger project would be needed in the future. For what, exactly, now that the Breach is closed, they didn’t specify. And with Crimson Typhoon being funded in part by the Chinese government – and doubtless crewed – then the question begs as to why the United Nations needs a brand new Jaeger.”

Mako swallows at the inquiring arch of a delicate brow. She has not yet expressed her concerns to anyone – not to Marshal Yun, not to Herc, not even Raleigh – although she knows he senses her tension. She takes care to let him think it is over the intricacy of repairing Crimson Typhoon. If _sensei_ were here, she would entrust him with her doubts and fears – but he is not. And Vanessa has, perhaps, a better chance of finding out what is now beyond Mako’s ability to influence. Mako should rather a discreet investigation than Herc or Raleigh’s confrontation, or Marshal Yun’s politics.

“A Breach goes both ways,” is what she says.

Dark eyes widen as Vanessa grasps her meaning. “Yes. Yes, it does.” Full lips purse as she glances down at her daughter, perhaps thinking of the future which Gail is to inherit. When she looks back at Mako, the gaze is canny and careful. “I’ll look into it and let you know. Thank you for trusting me.”

Mako nods, acknowledgement and a little relief. This kind of politics is not her forte; she can play the game, but she prefers not to. Engineering the Jaegers is easier, simpler, well within her comfort zone. And yet, _sensei_ taught her to look beyond her job, to question the bigger picture even when it proves uncomfortable.

Sometimes, he said, the big people needed a reminder that the little people will not quietly lay down to die.

Mako believed in closing the Breach. But she does not want to become some other world’s _kaiju._

Other women start to join them with plates of food, set down to be shared.

Mako smiles warmly at Dira Panjaitani as she puts down a cup of rice tea, a friend from the LA Shatterdome with whom she lost touch. Too many of Mako’s friendships in LA were lost in the days after Vijay died: friends whose kindnesses she couldn’t bear, people she ceased to contact, curling in on herself until there was nothing exposed that could be hurt again.

Only _sensei._

“So have you been out into the city yet?” She asks as Dira sips her tea. Dira has never been to Hong Kong and is still acclimating.

“I haven’t dared,” Dira admits. “It looks a maze, and I don’t even want to think about navigating the Boneslums.”

Mako smiles, thinking of all the places she has lived, their particular tenor and the people they engender. She thinks of a conversation with Raleigh the last time they went out into the city for the night, when the discussion had spoken of places they’d like to go – no tours, no publicity, just them.

“Raleigh said that LA sprawls on its hills, and Hong Kong crowds in its valleys.”

“Poetic.” Dira smiles down at Caleb Choi who has tottered his way around a ring of knees to Mako and is looking hopefully up at her.

“Mago?”

Mako lifts him into her lap, letting the little boy snuggle down in her arms and catching Alison’s eye to reassure her that it is not a problem.

“Wall-E?” Caleb tilts his head up at her.

“No, Raleigh is not here. You will see him later, at dinner.”

The little boy’s pout is dealt with through the application of cookie – authorised by his mother, of course. Mako does not mind the crumbs on her jumpsuit; she has been stained with worse.

“Practising for your own brood, Mako?” Jess Balzoni sits down and gives her a cheerful wink.

The question is intrusive, coming from someone she knows only slightly from her time in LA – Jess had just come from the Lima Shatterdome at the time – but the woman is a brilliant LOCCENT tech, so Tendo says.

Mako answers politely. “We...have not yet discussed it.”

She suspects that Raleigh is more certain in his desire for a family. He is older and has been out of the Jaeger program for many years, with nothing to tie him down. Since he came back, he has been re-establishing connections within the program once more – Tendo and Alison, Herc, and others from the Shatterdomes where he and his brother once worked, but Mako is his strongest link to the world, the anchor that keeps him from floating away.

Children are a ‘someday’ proposition – at least, they are to Mako. She desires a family of her own, yes; but she wants to enjoy this time between them now.

“Well, better hurry up and have that conversation, because he’s really into you. It’s kind of cute in a way – if a bit surprising.”

Dira’s face sets into a frown. “I don’t see why it would be surprising. Mako is a wonderful person. Mr. Becket should count himself lucky.”

A little flame kindles beneath Mako’s breastbone at Dira’s defence – a friendship she abandoned too easily. She will not make that mistake again.

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with Mako,” Jess says breezily. “It’s surprising because he was such a horndog in Lima. If it flirted with Raleigh Becket, he took it to bed.”

“Jess!”

“She’s Drifted with him, Dir,” Jess defends at Dira’s protest. “She should already know.”

Mako knows of Raleigh’s past. Just as she is aware of where and when Raleigh learned to go after what he wanted – after a girl he liked slept with his brother because she thought Raleigh wasn’t interested. She is aware that Raleigh was not quite as indiscriminate as Jess describes – although he was promiscuous enough when he and Yancy piloted Gipsy Danger.

She is also aware that he was abstemious in the years after Knifehead, unable to bring himself to emotional or physical intimacy with anyone, male or female – a psychological and emotional castration, if not a physical one.

It seems strange not to be aware how deeply Knifehead and Anchorage affected Raleigh. Yet Mako herself doubted the change in him, assessing him as the Becket Boy he had been before Anchorage, not seeing the man he became in the intervening years – until he accepted her assessment with a mature grace that showed her so wrong.

The room has fallen silent, and Mako blinks at the faces turned towards her, their expressions curious and expectant, and realises they are waiting for a confirmation, a reaction – some response from her to Jess’ comment.

“Oh,” she says, thinking of last night and the night before and the night before that and not stopping to consider what she is saying. “Raleigh is still a horndog.”

Mako blushes hotly as the room fills with women’s laughter.

–oOo–

Mako is sitting in bed, re-reading a PPDC report when Raleigh closes the door behind him, his brow lightly creased.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. At least, I’m not sure.” He shucks his sweater and his shirt, tossing them in the laundry pile. “But people have been staring at me all day, starting with the L-techs. Actually, it was mostly the women, and they grinned a lot.”

 _Oops._ Mako sits very still – too still, perhaps, for Raleigh pauses, eyeing her. “Is this gonna be one of those things I’m better off not knowing?”

“One of the women from Lima said you were a horndog.”

“Oh.” His stillness is utter and complete, faint lines suddenly grooving the sides of his mouth. “Mako, that was a long time ago—”

“Yes, but I said you were still a horndog.” It comes out in a rush, and she sees the flash of something like hurt in his eyes, before he realises what she means. “I wasn’t thinking—”

Mako starts to look away, then is halted when he touches her cheek with his fingers, turning her head back to look at him. “Hey.” His mouth nips at the corner of hers. “Just as long as you know there’s no-one else.”

“Just so long as there _is_ no-one else.”

“Not for either of us.”

He is ardent tonight, as though he has something to prove to himself, to her. Mako allows him to set the pace and does not make him wait and want, as she initially desired.

Kisses escalate and clothing is stripped from heated flesh. Her breath grows ragged as her heartbeat punches against her ribcage like a fist. And Raleigh’s gaze fires as he eases her thighs over his hips, tucking her ankles behind his back so he’s seated deeply within her.

Then he shifts his hips, a small and subtle friction that stokes her arousal like a spring winding up in her belly. Mako shivers as tremors cascade through her flesh, little waves of want-and-have and ache-and-ease that are both deeply satisfying and not quite enough.

And Raleigh continues to rock beneath her, steady as the tides of the sea, even as his voice grows hoarse. _Keep going—You’re so close, Mako—I love the way you come—Oh, yes, like that—And again—_

“Raleigh!” A bright haze of love and laughter gleams in his expression as he watches her, his eyes bright and feverish above the high flush of his cheeks, beneath the golden curve of his lashes. She locks her hands around his nape and stares down into his face. “You are doing this _on purpose!_ ”

“I have a reputation to uphold.”

She clenches her fingers in his hair, dragging his head back. “Horndog.”

“Yeah.” His gaze is shameless – as shameless as the hips that continue to move in her with easy, lazy strokes. “ _Your_ horndog.”

* * *

Raleigh wakes to the sound of ripping sheets.

It takes him a moment to realise those are his fists full of torn threads. It takes another for him to realise that he’s in his bed in the Hong Kong Shatterdome.

He lunges for the door, but his knee catches in the blanket and he crashes down to the floor with a wince. Yanking free of the shredded bedclothes, he grabs his cellphone and plunges out of his room, sprinting for the LOCCENT.

It’s early morning in Hong Kong – still dark. Midday in LA, where Mako is.

 _Mako._ His bare feet pound against cold concrete, his fingers grab for the wall to steady him as he swings around the corner, his heart smashes against his ribs. _Hold on, Mako. I’m getting help!_

How far is the fucking LOCCENT? Too goddamn far.

He calls Tendo, hoping the other guy is up, too late remembering that Tendo keeps slightly more normal hours now that he has a wife and kid in the Shatterdome.

“You just woke Caleb.” In the background, a toddler’s wail rises. “This better be good.”

“Mako’s being attacked. In LA – out by the old Marina.” The gunshots ring in his ears, the spatter coating the space behind his eyelids as bullets spit blood and flesh across the grim ground. Not hers. Not his. Not yet. “It’s the _kaiju_ worshippers—”

“Fuck. Des is monitoring LOCCENT this morning. Call him to get the PPDC out. I’ll get the Marshal up.”

The line goes dead and Raleigh thanks God for Tendo’s practicality.

_Dry dust and cold calm. Shallow breathing breaking the tense silence of the abandoned house. The pushing hands of the woman bleeding on the dusty floor. “Mako! Get out of here!”_

“ _I will not leave you. They are following the others—”_

“ _They want_ you _!”_

Mako Mori, killer of the _kaiju_ , world-famous, and wanted by the Church of the Breach for crimes against the gods.

Raleigh’s sprinting the corridor leading into the LOCCENT, and the doors hiss open to show not only Desmond Appin at the control board, but also his wife Helen Jiang.

“Raleigh?” Helen gapes at him. She’s wearing flannel pyjamas under a cardigan, her feet tucked into combat boots. He suddenly recalls he didn’t throw a shirt on as he sprinted out the door. Then her head comes up, her golden-olive skin draining of colour. “Mako.”

“Call LA – the Shatterdome. Mako’s under attack by _ju-_ heads.”

The speaker in front of them squawks. “Mum? Is that—?”

Desmond has already turned to the board to open another line as Helen answers her son. “Yes. We have to hang up. I will text you with details– I promise.”

“Mu—u—!” The wail is cut off as Helen closes the connection.

“This is Desmond Appin of Hong Kong, get me Marshal Fenstein, priority. Priority! What?” He swivels in his chair, his expression disturbed. “Then get me whoever’s there!”

Later, Raleigh remembers that neither Desmond nor Helen questioned how he knew Mako was under attack. They took his word at face value; they looked for solutions. They didn’t waste time.

“Who’s on?”

Desmond’s mouth is tight. “Ashton.”

“He won’t move fast enough,” Helen drags her hands through her hair then turns to Raleigh. “Can you pinpoint where she is? We’ll call the cops in LA.”

Raleigh closes his eyes, trying to make the connection again – trying to see the streets and get his bearings – Mako’s bearings. “Venice Beach. Palms Boulevard.”

“They won’t believe you, love,” Desmond says as Helen crosses over to another terminal and starts opening a line. “And they won’t get there fast enough. That’s a dead zone now – not quite Boneslum, but close.”

Her hands hover over the keyboard. “Do you know anyone in LA? Anyone who might help, who might have some influence?”

Behind her, Desmond’s talking in the too-cold, too-calm voice of a man who knows that yelling is going to antagonise whoever’s on the other end, but is thinking seriously about it. And Mako’s time is running out.

Raleigh shuts his eyes and grips that sense of her.

 _Ghost-Drifting_ , Helen called it when the phenomena first appeared among pilots – the link between pilots that remains even after the neural handshake has finished. Something wraps around him, a sense of Mako – of warmth and strength and determination – before she pulls away—

_no god no you don’t give up mako you hold on you survive whatever you have to do_

_Mako?_

“Raleigh?”

“She’s blocked me out.” He can’t breathe. There are black spots spread across his vision. “I can’t feel her. She’s blocked me—She’s _blocked—_ ”

Then his jaw hurts and he’s staring at the LOCCENT entrance where Tendo, Herc, and Marshal Yun are watching with their mouths hanging open.

“Jesus, Helen!” Tendo manages.

She ignores Tendo – petite and undaunted in pink pyjamas and a black cardigan, her boots planted, her hands on her hips. “Your partner needs you, Ranger! You stay on point!”

For some reason the phrase _battle hymn of the tiger mama_ sprints through Raleigh’s head in Mako’s laughing voice – _Mako_!

A memory surfaces.

_do you miss her?_

_every day_

Raleigh fumbles for his phone, looking for a number he’s never used. “Sergio D’onofrio.”

“You have D’onofrio’s number?” Tendo takes the terminal from Helen.

“I—He gave it to me—”

They had a conversation six months ago, in the halls of the United Nations, waiting for Mako to get out of the question session. Just one conversation about the women they loved – about learning how to wait for her to be ready for him, about how much it hurt to lose her. Out of anyone in the world, D’onofrio will understand – will move heaven and earth with any and all influence he has to protect Mako – for Raleigh, for Dr. Lightcap and himself.

 _Cait always said I was a romantic at heart_.

Marshal Yun is taking over from Desmond Appin, his sonorous voice reasoning fiercely with the person on the other end. Tendo is placing another call, and Herc’s on his phone, barking orders out at someone, his accent broadening further in gruff frustration. Helen’s hands have clenched into fists at all the things they’re trying to do – and failing.

Four rings and the phone is answered by a thin voice that still speaks with certainty.

“Mr. Becket. I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“Lieutenant, I’m sorry – it’s Mako. She’s in LA – Venice Beach – the _ju_ -heads are after her. Do you—? Can you—?”

“Yes.” The man who once shared his headspace with Dr. Lightcap doesn’t need to ask how Raleigh knows his partner is in danger. The mind that once made snap decisions in battle doesn’t need to think about his options. “I still have contacts in the military and the PPDC—” Muted voices at the other end of the line before D’onofrio’s voice comes clear again. “The address?”

Raleigh gives it, gripping his phone so tightly, he’s surprised the casing hasn’t cracked. His hand aches. So does his head.

So does his heart.

Mako blocked him out. Whatever delicate ghost-Drift exists between them, she shoved him out and closed the door behind. To spare him from feeling her death the way he felt Yancy’s? How can she not know that if she doesn’t survive this, neither will he?

“A PPDC squad is scrambling and on their way.” D’onofrio says. Raleigh hears the slight breathlessness in the reedy voice. Guilt throbs his gut – the man is dying and he’s asking for favours?

_Not for yourself. For Mako._

“I know a few people who were in Strike Operations. They’re on the move in the area – five minutes out. They’ll call when they have news.”

When Raleigh lowers the phone, the others are looking at him. He swallows the lump in his throat. “He got some people out there. They’ll call when—when—”

He can’t finish the sentence.

“Raleigh,” Herc begins, and the compassion is too much for him.

“I...need to be alone.”

They don’t stop him as he flees the LOCCENT before his demons catch up with him.

–oOo–

He stops by his room and drags on some clothes, but he can’t stay and cower.

Strands of her hair still curl in the sheets, her shirt flops over the chair back, and the second pillow leans up against the wall – she clutches it because apparently he isn’t soft enough to use as a pillow.

_And here I thought you liked me hard._

Raleigh gets out fast.

In the Kwoon training room, the hanbõ lie in scarlet rows, untouched. A handful of Rangers continue the martial disciplines for exercise and enjoyment, but this early in the morning, there’s nobody here.

His hand hovers over the rack, remembering the first time he was in here, looking for a co-pilot. Looking up at Mako and Pentecost with each call, aware that this wasn’t right, that these candidates weren’t who he needed to pilot Gipsy Danger.

Wanting to partner with the woman who spoke of his Jaeger with the kind of reverence he’d never thought to hear from anyone but himself and Yancy. Like she _felt_ Gipsy the way a co-pilot should.

_She’s one of kind now._

The wood is cool and smooth under his hand. It sings through the air like the sword Mako made for Gipsy—

His girls.

Only now Gipsy’s gone and Mako, too—

_No._

He tries a few moves, but he can’t summon the control to continue. His left arm aches. He can’t find Mako in the Drift. He’s lost—

– _lost in a cold dawn sea—Yancy—his left arm torn off—Gipsy—his heart ripped out—Mako—_

“Raleigh.”

It feels like an age before he looks up at Herc from where he kneels in the middle of the mat. His forehead aches where he pressed it against the upright hanbõ, as though in prayer – or trying to keep himself from falling.

It takes him two tries to get his voice working, a beach of Anchorage sand clogging his throat.

“Tell me.”


	2. the light in me will guide you home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINISHED! (Sort of.) For the WIP Big Bang, in which I spent four months agonising over this, rewriting it several dozen times, and finally settling on this as the end-so-far of the story.
> 
> I apologise for it taking so long - my brain got hijacked by a dozen other different plotbunnies, and then by the MCU when Cap2 started screening. Thank you so much for being patient with me, and I hope this ending is satisfactory for all!

The streets and alleys are covered with dust and Mako doesn’t let her eye rest on the bodies that no longer move. Behind her, the monster shrieks and howls, but she’s hiding and it can’t see her so she’s not here not here not a child anymore—

She's _not_ a child anymore.

She grew up, put Tokyo and Onibaba behind her.

 _Sensei_ gave her training, and Raleigh shared his Jaeger, and Mako made herself a sword—

It sits in her hand, long and segmented, like the spine of a _kaiju_ and capable of slicing one in two. She doesn’t have to hide.

But when she passes through the door back to the outside, the air is biting salt, stinging her eyes and dragging at the edges of her empty heart as she turns, spinning around to look at a world empty of her Drift partner.

_Listen to me, Mako! You hold on! You survive!_

He’s not here. He’s not here. She shut the door behind her and _he’s not here_.

Mako regains consciousness in Sergio D’Onofrio’s guest room, screaming for her co-pilot.

–oOo–

The instant the Sikorsky is sighted off the coast, Mako is off the couch and headed up to the rooftop helipad with only a quick bow to Sergio. Behind her, she hears him telling the hovering medical staff to let her go and is grateful for his interference.

She can’t wait – _won’t_ – not even for politeness’ sake.

This time there’s no rain, just the choppy wind of the propeller blades dragging at her hair and the hems of her borrowed clothes.

This time there’s no _sensei_ , just Raleigh stepping off the stairs without even looking where he’s going – his gaze has been on her face since she walked out onto the helipad.

This time there’s no polite insult, no polite apology, no polite bow – just the _oof_ of two bodies and conflicting momentums, the burning warmth of his chest, the rough scent of his skin, and the hard grip of his arms.

“You shut me out.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t—I didn’t want—”

“Don’t you ever, _ever_ —” Raleigh’s mouth is fierce on hers, with a desperate edge, and Mako takes him back with the same intensity. But beneath the hunger and the anger and the homecoming, a smear of fear stains her relief at seeing him again. He’s here, he’s in her arms, but he’s _not_ —

A sharp whistle turns their heads to look at the leader of the Jumphawk squad who accompanied Raleigh from Hong Kong. “Rangers, I hate to break up the reunion, but you got viewers.”

He indicates the sky where a chopper is flying by, it’s blazoning logo that of one of the better-known – and more shameless – gossip channels.

And Mako suddenly realises her hand is stuck up under Raleigh’s shirt, while his hand is warm against her waist where he shoved her t-shirt up to get his hands on her skin, and the world is watching them grope each other on the helipad.

–oOo–

Thirty minutes later, seated, fed, and never out of arms’ reach, Vanessa informs them that the gossip columns and speculation sites are having a field day.

“It’s nothing we can’t handle,” she says frankly. “But, Lieutenant, you’re going to have the world banging on your door.”

“Hardly new.” Sergio says with a faint smile.

Mako doesn’t squirm, although she wants to. She has never been clingy – not to _sensei_ , not to Tamsin, not to Vijay, not to any of her friends. And she wasn’t thinking when she saw Raleigh again – not of propriety, not of formality, not of anything but the need to touch him.

Raleigh’s hand folds over hers, his arm around her shoulders on the couch as they look up at the conference screen. “They were speculating while we were on the tour. Now they have proof.”

“Well, they’re going to want more,” Vanessa says grimly. “And in the absence of formal news, they’re going to make it up.”

“They’ll make it up anyway.” Raleigh shrugs. “Whether we give an interview or not.”

“I take it you don’t want to give an interview, then?”

Mako looks up at Raleigh, needing the eye contact to determine his thoughts, disturbed that she does.

“I’d rather not,” Raleigh says after a moment. “But I’m guessing PPDC publicity isn’t going to give us that space.” Vanessa makes a motion that might be a shrug or might be a wince, but doesn’t answer Raleigh. “Put out the official notice about the ju-heads attacking Mako, and that anyone with information can come forward.”

“And, please…the death notices, too,” Mako says softly. “I survived, but others did not.”

Raleigh’s grip on her tightens, subtle but not uncomfortable. Vanessa nods in brisk sympathy. The conversation turns towards how long they’ll be in LA for the funerals, where they’ll be staying during it. Sergio offers his house, Raleigh protests.

“We can’t impose—”

“It’s not an imposition, Mr Becket.” Sergio smiles a little. “Company would be welcome. I don’t have much of it these days.”

Mako understands – perhaps better than Raleigh does. So after the call is ended, they sit with Sergio and talk about ‘old times’ – _sensei_ and Tamsin, and the pilots and crew Raleigh knew the first time he piloted Gipsy Danger – and about ‘new times’ – what the future might hold for the world and the PPDC and them.

Through the conversation, Raleigh is never out of contact with her, his hand on her knee, his arm against her back, his fingers toying with the tips of her hair. Once, Mako shifts to ease a wrinkle out from under her thigh, and Raleigh’s nails scrape her nape as he clutches at her, convulsively. So when she settles, she leans back against him and feels him relax a little, although the heartbeat that pounds against her upper arm shows his anxiety.

Sergio doesn’t seem to notice, but then, he is visibly tiring. The flush of whatever passion or energy that carried him through yesterday and today is fading. Still, he speaks easily with them until his carer peers in to remind him that he needs a rest before dinner.

They rise to see him out, although he tries to wave them back down, shaking his head, even as Mako offers him her hand. “有り難うございます[thank you].”

“I’m glad to have helped,” he says with a smile that’s both genuine and tired as he squeezes her hand before turning to Raleigh and offering a handshake. “Mr Becket.”

Something passes between them before the Sergio wheels himself off towards his rooms, and Mako looks questioningly up at Raleigh.

“I’ll explain later.” Then he slides his arms around her, and Mako wraps hers around him and they stand there, hearts pounding in uneven rhythms. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She rubs her cheek against his collarbone and closes her eyes to inhale the scent of him, to relax into the familiar weight of his embrace.

It should be soothing.

It’s not.

It feels...odd. Unaccustomed, as though she’s never done this before. His hand slides up her back and while the caress is comforting, it feels...strange somehow.

Mako tries to burrow closer, leaving no space between them, and Raleigh’s grip tightens on her to the point of pain before he loosens his grip and nudges her face to his so their foreheads meet. His expression is fierce - exhaustion and tearing fear through the sudden harshness of their breathing.

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“I couldn’t let you— ”

His grip tightens on her. “Did you really think it would change anything?”

She shivers at the rough pain in his voice. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong.” His mouth closes over hers, hesitant at first, then harder when she angles up into his kiss. Their teeth bump when he lunges into her and her hiccup of surprise at the clash is lost in the ferocity of the kiss, in the way he hauls her hard up against him. Her fingers clench in the front of his sweater, and drag at the hair at his nape, and Mako presses into him, wanting—needing the warmth and weight of him, the heat of his skin against hers.

She’s not sure how they make it into the guest room, or who strips which piece of clothing.

After her brush with death and loss, it feels good to slide skin across skin, to bite and clutch and hold and have. But even as they move together, working out a rhythm that should feel familiar and doesn’t, Mako knows something’s changed.

There’s an…awkwardness. She nearly dislocates his shoulder getting his sweater off, he nearly squashes her, forgetting how much he weighs. There are jaws and noses where they’re not expecting them, and when he pinches her nipple, it’s sharp enough that she hisses.

Even once he’s in her, moving with hard, frantic strokes, Mako feels like something’s missing – the thick length of him sheathed in her is familiar…but not.

“More,” Raleigh begs as he moves in her with sharp, frantic thrusts. “Don’t hold back on me, Mako.”

“I am not.” She rakes her nails down his back, digging them into his buttocks, her whole body a conduit for sensation as he reaches down to touch her, rub her. “I would _not_ …”

Afterwards, with Raleigh sprawled over her, Mako thinks that his feels like the first time. Only their first time wasn’t like this, either – with the lingering feeling of _wrongness_.

It’s not until Raleigh props himself up over her, and lifts his gaze to hers that Mako feels the first glimmer of understanding.

“You shut me out.”

Mako flinches, as though it’s an accusation. “I had to.”

She shut him out to protect him, and now she doesn’t know how to open the door again.

–oOo–

The attack on Mako – and their subsequent PDA – brings them back into the public limelight. Not that they were going to be forgotten, but even Raleigh finds the level of publicity disconcerting – and this is something he’s lived through before.

He thinks Mako feels the same way but he’s not sure.

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t _know_ anymore.

“Ms. Mori, how do you feel about the news that law enforcement isn’t being allowed to pursue the matter of the _kaiju_ worshippers beyond the group that attacked you?”

“Is it true that you were in the city to promote the refurbished Jaeger program?”

“What’s the nature of your relationship with Mr. Becket?”

The press conference about the attempt on Mako’s life is hell – less for the cameras, and more because Raleigh sees Mako shut down in the middle of it. Not physically – she’s still standing there – but mentally, something in her just doesn’t care. She’s at the end of her rope and the next person who asks a stupid question – and there are plenty of stupid questions – is going to get the full, unvarnished Mako Mori.

At that point, Raleigh steps in.

He pushes past the PPDC representatives there for their photo ops, looking the security guards in the eye when they start to get in his way. Mako turns to look at him and the relief in her expression hits him like a _kaiju_ in full fight.

She lets herself be escorted off the stage, her hand reaching for his as a storm of camera flashes accompanies a flood of questions and a round of protests. Raleigh focuses on getting Mako out of there, shoving past PPDC staff and representatives, ignoring everyone else.

Mako’s the only person that matters.

Raleigh gets them out of the press room and into one of the side chambers, and the instant the door is shut, Mako turns to him, her arms go around him, and her face is pressed against his shoulder.

She doesn’t cry or sob or heave. She just breathes, slow and steady, like this is a meditation and she’s focusing.

He doesn’t know what she’s thinking, what she wants from him. This used to be easier, when he didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to guess.

But Mako blocked him out, and now Raleigh doesn’t _know_ anything. He can trust that she needs him, that she wants him – but he doesn’t _know_ the way he _knew_ in the Drift, in the Ghost-Drift, in the whatever-it-is-that-they’ve-been-doing these last few months.

His certainties are gone, all over again, and if it’s not as bad as losing Yancy – nothing will ever be as bad as losing Yancy – it still makes him shaky inside.

He can’t lose—He _won’t—_

When Mako starts to ease away, he holds on a moment longer before letting go.

“Hey,” he says, softly, when she tilts her head to look up at him. “You okay?”

She takes a moment to answer. “I will be.”

–oOo–

The funerals of Mako’s friends are well-attended.

Raleigh has his suspicions about all the people turning up, but soon it becomes pretty clear that the media has been blocked from the funeral, and Mako’s friends were well-known and well-liked, too – part of a close-knit community of PPDC personnel who befriended Mako Mori long before she became a Jaeger pilot.

Hong Kong before Pitfall didn’t have the time to become that community, although Raleigh remembers such closeness in Lima and Anchorage. Jaeger pilots were both part and not-part of that community – connected by their crews, but also very much separate. There was only so much room for socialising with other people after you’d filled your soul up with your co-pilot.

Mako gets caught up in a knot of women who hug her and weep and murmur things in accents that are too thick for Raleigh to be able to parse right now. And he stands to the side among people who know what he is and are largely indifferent to it, and watches her move among people who know what she is and count that less important than who she is to them.

“Mr. Becket?” He drags his attention from the sunlit swing of black hair to look at the man: brown-skinned and heavyset, dark eyes, dark hair – Indian or Pakistani ancestry, with a sharp, steady gaze. “I am Pratul Sangwan. You do not know me, but my brother was…friends…with Mako.”

It takes Raleigh a moment to match up the name and the face. “Vijay.”

“Yes.” Pratul looks apprehensive. “Mako has spoken of him?”

Not exactly, but it’s easier to say, “Yes,” than to explain about Ghost-Drifting and dreaming of being the woman you love being made love to by another man.

If Raleigh has a sexual history; Mako has a romantic history. A man she loved – a guy of the LA Jumphawk squads who loved her, made her laugh, made her believe in their future together after the _kaiju_ were defeated. Vijay Sangwan died before he got to see that future, before Mako ever came to Hong Kong and co-piloted Gipsy with Raleigh to give them all a future.

This funeral might have been hers – one more victim of the _kaiju_.

The terror hits Raleigh hard, like a dizzy spell. The world wobbles. He can’t breathe.

Mako nearly died. The _ju-_ heads nearly succeeded in killing her, and only the sacrifice of her friends and her own cunning kept her alive long enough for D’Onofrio’s ex-Jumphawks to reach her in time. He nearly lost her. He nearly—

– _lost in a cold dawn sea—Yancy—his left arm torn off—Gipsy—his heart ripped out—Mako—_

He staggers, unable to keep his balance. Hands grab him, holding him up, but none of the hands are hers. The world narrows down to the emptiness, the loneliness, the endless, snowy beach and the hole in his heart where his co-pilot once stood...

“Raleigh!”

It takes him a moment to register the warmth of her in his arms, to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. Warm and alive and real and here – not dead. She makes a noise of protest, and he eases his grip back. The sob wells up in him and her hand cups his nape, a tender caress that eases the fear back a notch or two.

But his heart still pounds at the memory of anguish-pain-emptiness and he can’t distinguish between the loss of Yancy and the almost-loss of Mako.

–oOo–

It should get better, but it doesn’t.

Raleigh wakes in the early mornings, damp with fear and relived horror, and rolls over in the sheets, seeking dry, warm skin and the scent of her hair. Or else he wakes when Mako curls against him, burrowing against him like a frightened child.

They fuck like there’s no tomorrow, hands, lips, teeth, hips, like they’ve been starved of each other for months, _years_.

But sex isn’t enough either.

The media attention doesn’t help.

Someone in the PPDC decides that, since they’re here in the USA, now’s a good time to send them out to do interviews on talk shows, on tube channels. But there’s no backup this time – no Herc, no Gottlieb, no Geiszler. Nobody to take the spotlight off them, nobody to run interference the way Vanessa Gottlieb and Helen Jiang did the first time.

And the questions weren’t so intrusive last time.

“ _What’s it like, sleeping with someone whose head you’ve been in? Do you have any boundaries?_ ”

“ _Are you planning on getting married? Will you be adding to the baby boom currently taking place?_ ”

“ _Four people died to give you the chance to escape, Ms. Mori. Do you really think all their lives were worth yours?_ ”

Mako is quiet and tense for the rest of the day, her expression unrevealing, her thoughts opaque to Raleigh. But there’s no time and space to ask during the day, so he waits until they’re alone in their room at D’Onofrio’s.

“Mako? Talk to me.”

There’s a few seconds when she won’t meet his eyes. “ _Sensei_ once quoted something – that if a man could gain the whole world but could not hold onto his own soul, what good was he?” She looks up at Raleigh and her gaze is haunted. “I could help save the world, but I could not save my friends. And my life wasn’t worth—”

“They felt it was.” Raleigh lets her ease in close. “If they hadn’t thought so, they wouldn’t—”

“Have _died_?”

“They denied the _kaiju_ followers a victory.” Raleigh rubs his hand up and down her arm. “That matters.”

“But they deserved to live!”

And that’s the bigger issue at stake. Mako survived Tokyo, thanks to Pentecost. She survived Pitfall, thanks to Pentecost, Hansen, and Raleigh. And now she’s survived the _ju_ -head attack – thanks to the sacrifice of her friends.

She survived and others didn’t.

Raleigh knows how that feels. And Mako has _that_ in her memory, too, thanks to him.

He hasn’t got the words to comfort Mako. Nothing he can say that will make this better. All Raleigh has is his presence and his arms around her.

He wishes he knew it was enough.

–oOo–

She wanders an evacuated city, biting wind blowing snow against her face. She stumbles across the icy sand with the memory of _sensei_ plucked out from beside her. She kneels down, beside Raleigh as he pushes at her hands, rich, black blood welling up from the wound in his chest. “ _Mako! Get out of here!_ ”

Mako wakes sharply in her bed and rolls over into the space where Raleigh should be – and isn’t.

Terror wraps sharp fingers around her throat. She fumbles for the light over the bed, then glimpses the LED numbers of the clock – 0700. It’s late. Raleigh has already risen and gone out to breakfast.

She still turns on the light, then lies back. Her pulse hammers in her throat, in her temples, beneath her breastbone, as her chest heaves with every panting gulp of breath. And when she climbs out of bed and sits on the edge, the sheets are sticky with her sweat.

As she lets the shower run hot over her skin, Mako thinks that coming back to Hong Kong hasn’t made things any easier.

She skips breakfast in the mess hall, merely grabbing an energy bar from her stash before heading straight up to the workshops where the processes and planning for the new Jaeger take place every day.

 _Guardian Storm_ is still a mass of pieces – more drawing board than reality – but it is slowly coming together. The meetings Mako completed in LA before the attack were to determine some of the finer programming details – as well as to recruit a number of former PPDC personnel to work on the project. Great advances have been made even since the time when Striker Eureka was being built, and the world will not rest safe until they know there is at least one Jaeger ready to take on whatever _kaiju_ might come through a re-opened Breach.

Sometimes, when working on the specs for _Guardian Storm,_ Mako wonders if she will ever feel safe again.

“ _We’re going out into the city,_ ” Dira said the other night over dinner. “ _You should come. Get out of the Shatterdome for a while._ ”

Mako refused, unable to face even the thought of going into the crowded streets of Hong Kong – whether the Exclusion Zone or the city proper. She was never one for parties and clubs in any case. And if she does not go out, the _ju_ -heads will not target her and her friends.

“Hey Mako.” One of the techs interrupts her thoughts. “Come and take a look at these specs? I don’t like the results we’re getting back from the stress testing at the Swiss labs– the numbers are all off and it’s not encouraging.”

The results are indeed not what they were expecting, and she discusses it with Gavin Messer, who was Chief Tech of Striker Eureka’s crew.

“Load of bullshit,” he grunts. “‘Scuse my language, Miss Mori. Take a Jaeger in with that kind of stress load and you’ll crack at the joints the first time you draw back for your swing. The Ukranians had this alloy back in the day – they used it for Striker. Can’t believe they’ve lost it since then. I’ve got the details here on my pad... Somewhere...”

Researching alloys and previous Jaeger specs takes them well past lunchtime.

Mako’s so engrossed, she forgets that she was going to meet Raleigh in the mess until he turns up with a tray of congee.

“I figured you were busy and didn’t want disturbing.” His voice is light, and the kiss he drops on her neck is tender, but something about the way he says it suggests that he’s not happy she forgot. “Whatcha doing?”

“Sorting out problems with the alloys for Guardian Storm.” There is more than enough congee for them both, and two sets of utensils. She dips the deep fried bread into the bowl and offers it to Raleigh, who takes a great bite of it. “What about you?”

“Sounding board for Herc about the PPDC inquisition next month. Trying to work out who we need on our side.” Raleigh leans into her a little, his shoulder butting up against hers. “When I joined the PPDC, I didn’t think I’d end up playing political games.”

“You would be good at it. Getting people on our side.”

Raleigh grins and fishes out a piece of preserved egg, which he offers to her since she prefers it. The spoon isn’t quite at the right angle, and Mako ends up dribbling more of the congee down her chin than she likes.

As she reaches for a tissue, Raleigh leans in and licks it up off her jaw.

Mako jerks back, surprised and a little awkward at the sudden flash of hurt in his gaze.

“Sorry,” he says.

She wipes at the dampness. Before LA she would have thought nothing of such an intimacy, but now it seems uncomfortably public. “I...Not here.”

They finish their lunch in silence.

In spite of her request, Raleigh kisses her again before he goes off to his afternoon training. Mako has to remind herself not to flinch. Still, when he draws back, she thinks that she might not have flinched, but he felt it all the same.

Still, all he says is, “Remember Kwoon before dinner, okay?”

–oOo–

When they meet before dinner, Raleigh is in what Vanessa Gottlieb calls ‘a mood’.

It’s in the way he moves around the mat, warming up, and in the heavy, measuring looks he sends her way.

Mako could address it, but she does not want to deal with him. He feels like too much effort – his moods and his uncertainties. Why can he not understand that she is busy with _Guardian Storm_ and she does not have time for such things when she is involved? She does her stretches, her breathing careful and deep as she prepares herself.

 _Every time is real,_ says _sensei_ in her mind. _There is no ‘practise’ or ‘trial’. What you learn in training is what you do in battle. So every time must count, if only in your head._

Mako steps onto the mats and faces him. They bow.

Raleigh strikes first.

Back and forth across the mat, hit and dodge and turn and duck and swipe.

Their scores rise slowly – one to him, one to her, another to her, and one to him. They are as matched this time as they were the first. This is one of the things unchanged – their ability to fight each other to a standstill; their psycholinguistic patterns familiar and intimate. The problem is not compatibility.

“How was the afternoon?”

Mako defends against the flurry of high, overhand strokes from Raleigh. “Distraction is unfair.”

“You know what they say: all’s fair in love and war.” A smile flickers across his features, subtle and expressive. “And isn’t this both?”

She attacks him back – in the midrange, forcing him to defend close in to his body – and answers his initial question. She can fight and answer questions at once – it is no different to Drifting, surely? “Issues with the testing in European labs – there are discrepancies that will endanger the safety of the Jaeger.”

“You have to go away again.”

Hanbõ cross and recross, slapping at each other like the argument they aren’t having. “This is important, Raleigh.”

“I know.”

“If the work is not done properly – if we cannot rely on the Jaegers—”

“I know!” The words are sharp, but his movements remain controlled – although more aggressive than usual. The thoughts and feelings that fuel him are not mastering him. Still, Mako knows they are there, even if he does not express them verbally.

The fight takes them back and forth across the mat, around and around in dancing circles that widen and contract. Her pulse pounds in her throat and her chest, her breath is short and she cannot see anything but Raleigh, moving in, moving out, his eyes the blue of the sea, his muscles gleaming with sweat.

Mako wins – but by the thinnest of margins. Points are matched, one by one, and their scores climb steady and strong until finally Raleigh goes down. The tumble seems a little awkward, and Mako thinks his shoulder might be bothering him. Only when she offers a hand up, Raleigh pulls her down, tumbling her over so she’s pinned under him.

“Rale—”

His kisses are urgent and hungry – great bites that swallow up her protests that they are in a public place, that anyone could come by. The weight and heft of his body holds her down as his hands slide up under her top. She can feel the heat of his erection against her hip, and, yes, she wants him but not where anyone could find them on the mats, like adolescents unable to restrain themselves.

“Raleigh!” His thigh rubs between her legs, cotton and pressure and the throbbing pulse of her heartbeat in her throat, deep in her cleft. “Not here!”

“Please,” he whispers as he drowns her in kisses and sensation. “Mako, I need— _Please._ ”

She should say no. She doesn’t want to get caught here, like this, by anyone who might be passing by. But she also doesn’t want to deny herself the moment – the rush of adrenaline, of knowing and being known. Of _Drifting_...

“Yes,” she says and lifts her head to kiss him back. “Okay.”

It’s fast and a little rough. Urgent and needy. Her skin is an explosion of sensation, her core incandescent as they touch and rub and press at each other. No skin contact, just the friction of fabric across sensitised flesh.

It’s so nearly enough.

Raleigh swallows her ecstatic cries as his fingers urge her to orgasm – and then again when he takes his hand away and replaces it with his hips. And Mako digs her fingers into the small of his back as he dry-humps her on the floor of the Kwoon until she comes again.

Limp with satiation, and confused with desire, Mako is only vaguely aware of him putting away the hanbõ as she sprawls on the mats in post-coital lethargy. When she turns her head to look at him, she thinks he moves like a tiger on the prowl, fluid muscle and feline implacability. And when he turns his head to look at her, she sees the tent of his trousers and realises he is not yet done.

“Raleigh?”

He pulls her up, half-carrying her to the communal showers. They see no-one on the way – or maybe Mako just doesn’t remember meeting anyone along the way. Her awareness has narrowed down to Raleigh – his arm both cradling her and propelling her along, his hands warm on her skin as he helps her undress, the scent of his desire as he undresses.

As he hustles her into the cubicle, Mako moves to act – to take initiative, to push back against his hunger – so voracious, so desperate. She takes him in hand, pushing him back against the shower wall, while he pants and strokes and nips. It buys her only a little time, for today he is too hot to cool down this way, and he knows her too well to give her too much respite.

In the end, it is all she can do to hold on as Raleigh moves in her, making urgent, desperate noises as he fucks her against the cool tile of the shower cubicle, while Mako bites her lip to keep her cries muffled as her body overloads from the sensation – hot and cold and bright and sharp.

More than she wants, more than her body can handle, too much...

Yet Raleigh needs this, craves this intimacy, his grunts dim in her ears against the hiss of the water and the pounding of her heart. And Mako wants him back, too – the sense of him under her skin, in her mind, the consciousness of each other that they’ve never been truly without – not since they first sparred on the Kwoon mats.

So she clings tight and holds him until he slows and stills, his face buried in the curve of her throat.

Then Mako unhooks her legs from his hips and bites her lip at the tenderness between her thighs. And Raleigh is solicitous and repentant and she lets him fuss, even as she knows sex is not enough to tide them over – not anymore.

–oOo–

It occurs to Raleigh that, at twenty-seven years of age, he’s never talked through his relationship troubles with anyone before.

Back around the time he would have first been getting into romantic troubles, he and Yancy were at the Academy, and a year after that, they were piloting a Jaeger.

Raleigh’s had plenty of casual sexual encounters in his time, but those were never going to match up to the depth and intimacy of the relationship he had with Yancy in the Drift. And then Knifehead got Yancy, and Raleigh chose to avoid sex, unable to bear a physical intimacy that could never even approach the emotional closeness between him and Yancy those five years piloting.

And then Mako Mori looked at him in the drizzling rain, and Drifted with him on the streets of Tokyo and on the shores of Anchorage, and that was that.

Only, it’s not that anymore. It’s something else – something that they don’t know how to navigate, that seems to trip them up every time they turn around.

Now he needs someone to talk to.

And now there’s nobody to ask.

The pool of Jaeger pilots was never large to begin with, but in the year before Pitfall, their numbers dropped to less than twenty. After the battle for Hong Kong and Pitfall, it’s barely ten – and of those, Raleigh only really knows Herc, Sergio D’Onofrio, and Mako.

Herc’s out of the question. Raleigh won’t ask that of Herc – won’t rub salt in the other man’s wounds. He’s been there. He knows how it feels to turn and want and stumble over the hole in his soul.

Sergio might be a better option – if he wasn’t dying. Quietly, and out of the public eye, but firmly and fiercely burning out. And Raleigh doesn’t want to put this on him – he’s already given Raleigh so much..

And Mako...well, Mako’s the problem.

Or, maybe Raleigh’s the problem and Mako’s just the one caught up in it.

A tablet stylus flies through the air – it’s about a foot in front of Raleigh’s face, but he still flinches back and looks at Tendo. “Sorry.”

“You know, bro,” Tendo sets his tablet down on the desk, “I’m getting the feeling your mind isn’t exactly on this.”

“She’s pulling away.”

Raleigh doesn’t mean to just blurt it out to Tendo. From the expression he gets, Tendo wasn’t expecting Raleigh’s sudden need to share. But, to give Tendo his due, he’s game. He pushes away the specs they’re going over for one of the construction ‘Jaegers’ and leans back in his chair. “And?”

“And I don’t know how to stop it.”

“Have you tried talking?”

“We’re not spending _all_ day in bed.” In fact, sex has pretty much stopped since the evening on the Kwoon mats. “Mako’s pretty tired, anyway.”

“Is she pregnant?”

Raleigh blinks. His heart leaps, clutching for any straw. “I...don’t think.” Then he remembers. “No.”

Tendo’s a married man. He doesn’t blink or blush at Raleigh’s certainty. “Okay, so Mako’s tired – I’m guessing part of it’s because she’s working such long hours. The next question is, ‘Are the long hours necessary right now, or are they deliberate?’”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you done anything to piss her off?”

“I don’t—” Raleigh thinks of Mako in his arms in the showers, unresisting, but not eager either. “I don’t know.”

“Do I want to know why you paused?”

“It’s not important.” At least, Raleigh doesn’t think it is. Mako wanted him – she knows that if she asked, he’d stop. Doesn’t she? “She’s been...different. Since the attack. We don’t... We don’t Drift anymore.”

Tendo frowns. “Ghost-Drifting, you mean?”

Raleigh shrugs. He doesn’t know what’s what anymore – Drifting, ghost-Drifting, him, Mako, their relationship... A part of him wonders if this is how Yancy felt – Drifting with his little brother, trying to keep the pieces of them separate. Lines and boundaries and limits – things that Raleigh doesn’t remember negotiating: perhaps because Yancy did a lot of that for them, and Raleigh just followed his lead?

“I don’t know what she’s thinking anymore.”

“Brother, most of us never get to know that. And it’s been the saving of many a marriage.” Tendo waggles his brows in a way that’s meant to make Raleigh smile. It works. It just doesn’t answer his concerns. “Look, I’m probably not the best guy to give you relationship advice, seeing as most of my knowledge is specific to Alison and I’ve never been in her head. Your best bet is probably taking it one of the Jaeger neuropsychs. Wasn’t Mako seeing Helen Jiang about what happened in LA?”

“Yes.” Raleigh didn’t ask about the sessions – partly because he felt he should give Mako this space, and partly because he finds Helen Jiang kind of scary after that night he sensed the attack on Mako. “So like...relationship counselling?”

“At least it’s not sex therapy.”

“And you’d know all about that why?” Raleigh asks just to see Tendo’s reaction. He gets a disdainful look.

“You’ll have to do better than that, brother.”

“It was worth a try.”

“And so is talking to Helen. Or another Jaeger neuropsych. You should know the drill by now.”

Raleigh grimaces. He never much liked his interactions with the neuropsychs – people picking through his thoughts like they were scavenging for treasure. His memories of the neuropsych assigned to him after Anchorage are particularly bad, although he’s willing to concede that he wasn’t really in a place where he wanted to talk with anyone.

“I guess I’ll see,” he hedges, not enthused by the thought.

Still, he’s getting desperate. Mako’s slipping away from him with every day that passes, and if he doesn’t do something soon, he’s not sure how much there’ll be left of them to save.

–oOo–

The most difficult part is pinning Mako down.

Raleigh is pretty sure she’s actively avoiding him now. She’s always busy, always with somewhere else to be, coming in late and in darkness when she thinks he’s asleep, or already in bed when he gets in.

He brings her meals just as she has to rush off to lunchtime meetings. He sees her briefly on her way out the door as he’s coming in. They don’t spar in the Kwoon or chat in their rooms or share meals or anything.

And a little part of him fractures every time she pushes him away.

For some reason, Raleigh has a line of an old play running through his head. _Put it out of mind; we never touched_.

But he can’t put it out of his mind, and they did touch – but they’re not connecting, and he’s not sure how much longer he can hold it all together.

Not very long, as it turns out.

Mako has to go away again – to Switzerland, to look into the production issues. And Raleigh could go with her, _wants_ to go with her, wants to keep her in sight. He can’t. Or, more correctly, he won’t saddle her with him when it’s so clear she doesn’t want him anymore.

The night before she leaves is ordinary. Sort of. She curls up against him, but they don’t make love. And Raleigh falls asleep with her hair tickling his chest.

He wakes from a dream of a corridor in the Lima Shatterdome, Chuck Hansen’s grip hard and unforgiving against her bicep.

_So that’s it, then? I’m dumped because you’re jealous that I’m a pilot and you’re not?_

_That is not the reason, Chuck._ She pulls away, and there’s a moment when he resists before he lets her go. She steps back, glancing over her shoulder, hating the confrontation – in public, where anyone could see! _We were never Drift-compatible, Chuck—_

_And that’s the only reason you’d fuck me?_

Her cheeks are hot. _We did not ‘fuck’._ It was…nicer than that. A little awkward, but kind of fun. But she doesn’t think of him as more – they are too young to be thinking of anything long-term…

 _Yeah, we fucked._ Hansen’s face is contorted with emotions she doesn’t recognise then – jealousy, bitterness, thwarted affection. _So that’s it then? I’m a phase and now you’re out of me?_

_We can still be friends._

He shakes off her touch. _Yeah, well I don’t want to be your friend!_

And that’s the last she sees of him for nearly a year, her mails unread, her texts unopened, her calls unanswered.

Raleigh stares into the inky darkness for a dozen hurting heartbeats, then eases himself out from beside Mako and goes into the washroom. He splashes cold water on his face, then runs the water until it’s warm over his wrists.

It’s just a memory. It doesn’t mean anything.

Only it does.

It means he has to let Mako go. Not just to Europe without him, but emotionally, personally.

The echoes of her regret linger inside him, the guilt of breaking up with Chuck, her frustration at his inability to accept what she had for him, the bitter silence that grew until it was too much to be breached.

He looks at himself in the mirror, looks himself in the eye.

The truth is that he doesn’t want to just be Mako’s friend any more than Hansen did. But after LA – after she shut him out, after her friends died, after they’ve struggled to reconnected without the Drift – friendship might be all she has left for him. And Raleigh isn’t Chuck Hansen to demand everything and walk away if he can’t have it.

Raleigh lost Yancy and that nearly killed him. This isn’t losing Mako. It’s just...stepping back. Learning to live with a little less.

Mako Mori may not be able to love Raleigh Becket without the Drift – not the way he wants, but she isn’t going to lose him, too.

But they need to talk.

Raleigh turns off the water. He takes care of business, and washes and dries his hands. And he opens the door to find Mako getting out of bed. She gives him a brief, sleepy smile as she goes by, and it’s all he can do not to grab her and hold on for dear life.

He sits on the edge of their bed and listens to the little, familiar noises of her in the bathroom. He tells himself that it’s best to know the worst from the start.

He tries to believe that there isn’t a wariness in her gaze as she crosses the room to take his outstretched hand. But he knows he’s lying to himself when he draws her in and presses his cheek against her breastbone, and she hesitates before her arms come around him.

“How long will you be in Europe?”

“A week.” Her fingers trail through his hair, and Raleigh closes his eyes. “It won’t be like last time.”

“I know.” The breath he takes is full of the scent of her skin, warm and sleepy, and he nearly keeps his mouth shut. _Don’t rock the boat. Don’t question it. Just take what she has to give you._ But he can’t live like this forever, and he doesn’t want to grow bitter over what he does and doesn’t have.

_The Drift is compatibility, not destiny._

He will never give her up. But he needs to know where her lines are drawn, so he doesn’t keep crossing them.

“Mako...”

“Yes?”

Raleigh sets his shoulders and takes another deep breath before he lifts his face to look up at her. “I was thinking…I should move out while you’re in Europe.”

She tenses under his hands. “Move out?”

“Yes. Because you’re not happy with me right now, Mako. And I don’t…” _I don’t want to be like Hansen_. The words hover on his lips, but he doesn’t utter them. “I think we need space.” He manages a smile and hopes it’s not too broken. “You go to Europe. I’ll move out. We’ll start over as friends.”

“Friends.” The word is soft, testing. She pulls away, stepping back with her arms wrapping tightly around her, elbows tucked in tight. “That is what you want?”

The lie is tempting – an easy out. But Raleigh won’t sell himself short, and he won’t tell her what isn’t true. “I want you to be happy, Mako. And right now, you’re not – not with me.”

“I—” Mako hesitates and looks away. Raleigh waits. “It is difficult. After the attack. Not you,” she murmurs. Then, honestly, “Not _just_ you.”

She shivers, and Raleigh notices the goosebumps on her arms, reaches over to snag her dressing gown. Mako lets him wrap her up in it, and Raleigh allows himself the brief pleasure of holding her in his arms, then nudges her back into the bed, sitting on the edge of it, up against the headboard, leaving space so she doesn’t feel like he’s blocking her exits.

And then she crawls over to sit beside him, and ducks in under his arm, tucking herself in by his side.

Raleigh’s heart thumps painfully in his chest as he rests his arm around her shoulders and leans in, brushing his cheek against the top of her head.

“I couldn’t protect them,” she says after a moment. “They were supposed to— _I_ was supposed to—And I couldn’t. And they died.”

He wants to say she couldn’t have done anything. She couldn’t have fought off all the ju-heads and saved her friends. He wants to say that her friends chose to sacrifice themselves for her – and that her life was worth it, to him, to the world.

He doesn’t. He just lets her shelter under his arm, and reaches for her hand where it curls against his thigh.

She squeezes him once, then eases her hand out from his touch, retreating. “Are you tired of me, Raleigh?”

“No!” The word comes out so fast he doesn’t even realise he’s said it until he hears it. “Don’t ever think that, Mako. _Ever_.”

She shrugs, but doesn’t say anything, and he can’t sense her thoughts, or feel what she’s feeling, but Raleigh takes a deep breath and a not-so-wild guess. They’re Drift-compatible, after all.

“I still love you, Mako, but you’ve been pulling away from me ever since LA. You shut me out—”

“Because I didn’t—” _I didn’t want you to feel me die the way you felt Yancy die_.

They don’t have to be Drifting for Raleigh to know what she’s about to say.

“Yes,” he says quickly as the old wound aches with a sudden sting. “But you shut me out in LA, and then we came home and you’re still shutting me out.”

“I didn’t mean to.” He feels the breath she takes, then holds, as though she’s thinking of saying more.

“What is it?”

She hesitates before answering, and the shift of her body against his betrays her discomfort. But he waits, because he can be patient and he wants to know.

“I like this.”

“So do I.” Raleigh waits for what she was really going to say. His hand drifts over the silk of her hair. “Mako?”

She takes a deep breath and looks up at him. “Is it the sex?”

Oh God. “No, it’s not the sex.” He wants to laugh and he wants to cry, but either way he doesn’t know how to say what needs to be said.

“But you—” She breaks off, and heat washes her face and neck as she looks away, unwilling to openly accuse him of pushing. “I know we are not used to being...intimate without it but it feels...different. It is not the same anymore.”

Raleigh swallows hard. “I know. But Mako, I don’t need...” He drops a kiss on her shoulder. “I want you. I love you. But I don’t want you to feel you have to – that we have to have sex. I just...I just wanted things to be the way they were.”

But they’re not. And all the sex in the world won’t change that.

Mako’s hand closes over his. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says immediately. “I mean, yes, it’s different, and we’ll have to learn to live without the Drift – that is, if you want to.”

The silence stretches longer than makes him comfortable before she says, very softly. “I want this.” Her head tilts back to look up at him. “I do not want you to move out. You said you were mine, and I am keeping you.”

“Even without the Drift?”

“With or without it.”

She says it solemnly, but Raleigh grins. He has to grin, because the look in her eyes – possessive and satisfied – squeezes something in his chest, and his throat feels choked.

“I have no objection to being kept.”

He’s surprised to discover his voice is a little hoarse. Relief is a powerful emotion after the last month – after the last couple of weeks – wondering.

She still loves him, wants him, will come back to him.

He turns his head so his face fits into the crook of her neck and is a little ashamed to feel tears stinging his eyes.

Then Mako shifts away, one hand touching his cheek, gently pushing his face up. “Raleigh.” Her own eyes are glassy, even through the tremulous smile she gives him, and a tear trails down her cheek as he watches.

His hand is there to brush it away, even as he tilts his head so their foreheads touch.

–oOo–

Everything has changed.

Standing beside Raleigh as the lift takes them down to the helipad, Mako _feels_ different. As though a storm inside her has broken with her tears of last night, leaving her looking out on a fresh new world, bright morning sun.

They talked more in the darkness afterwards – all the things that they haven’t said to each other in this last month: her work, his lessons, what the world wants, what they need to do.

He held her while she wept for her friends again – and _sensei_ and the Wei Tang, the Kaidonovskies, and Chuck and many other pilots – all the people she loved who she couldn’t save. And the man she loves – her co-pilot – who is willing to help her save herself.

She wishes he could come with her to Europe. But she already asked, and he already refused.

 _I can’t. I have to get used to this._ _ **We**_ _have to get used to this._ But his arms closed more tightly around her, and she clung to him, wishing they could lie here for a day or a dozen. _So you go, and I’ll be waiting here for you when you come back._

His fingers lace into hers as they walk amidst the Jumphawk personnel heading out with her to Europe – the PPDC’s precautions against further attacks.

They turn at the edge of the marked-out walkway, where the chopper’s blades gust her coat and his hair. And he bends down and bumps his forehead against hers. No kiss. “Go and come back. I’ll be here waiting.”

She pulls him down for a kiss, because it feels wrong not to. And if the sex of the last few weeks has felt wrong, this feels right again – aching and tender and far too brief.

But the Sikorsky is waiting, and Mako is only too aware that they have a timetable.

“Be safe,” he murmurs. “For me, okay?”

“And you will be waiting for me. My safe harbour.”

His expression softens. “Yes.” He kisses her again, and she can taste the regret on his lips. “Go.”

Mako goes.

_Sail your sea, meet your storm,_  
 _All I want is to be your harbour._  
 _The light in me will guide you home,  
All I want is to be your harbour._

_~ “Harbour” ~ Vienna Teng ~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Frea and Shen for setting up this WIP Big Bang (even if this isn't the story that Frea wanted me to finish), to bethanyactually and shmoo92 for reading through the half-finished file to let me know where the issues were, and to Laimelde for betaing for me at the end. So much thanks!
> 
> Finally, [endeni](http://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni) has done [beautiful cover art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1677845) for this story - go check it out and leave kudos (the little button with "♥ Kudos" on it - for those of you who've come from ff.net: clicking that lets the creator know you liked it) or comments to let her know what a lovely job she did!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["the Drift is compatibility, not destiny" Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1677845) by [endeni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni)




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